St. Landry democrat., 1887-10-01

that the party possesses goods or prop
ertv. because when the Indians travel
they generally carry their property with
them in that way, whereas we might un-
derstand by it that the party was SER
want. A circle around the lower limbs
shows that his family is we'll clothed,
svmbolizing female garment; a circle
around the head implies miraculous
power, just as our painters put circle
around the head of the Saviour or of a
saint. A picture of wigwam or lodge
and kettle represents the preparation for
a feast. A hand and a mouth denotes eat
ing, &c. Thus we see that there were
many ideas which the Indians were able
to represent by their pictures apart from
the representation of mere external OBJ
iects, which ideas were perfectly intellig-
ible to any person acquainted with the
manner of writing adopted by each
tribe But the methods of the different
tribes were by no means identical, and
even when two different tribes lived very
close to each other, there was often vast
difference in their systems. The Mexl-
can inscriptions are drawn on the same
general plan as those of our Indians,
though they had at their command
more developed and complex arrange
ment of symbols; and whereas our In
dams sometimes roughly daubed their
figures with rude colors, the ancient
Mexicans painted theirs with considera
bic skill and taste. Both combined the
picture and symbolic methods.
That wonderful people, the early
Egyptians, had the same habit as the
Mexicans of covering the vast walls of
their temples and palaces and other
buildings with pictures of historical
events. But they had an alphabet of
l,tters; and the priests, whose twO-fold
object seems to have been to preserve
the records of the country for future gem
erations of priests, and to conceal the
knowledge of them from every one else,
adopted the old style of writing by pic
lures, which the nation at large had dis
carded. But, instead of using the pic
lures to represent objects or to suggest
ideas, they made them stand for letters or
syllables and sometimes when they had
thus spelled out word, as the same word
very often meant different things, just as
is the case with US, they followed up the
drawing of the word with a picture of
the object for which the word was in
tended to stand in that particular in
glish: Suppose they had spelled the
word letter; :" they would probably put
after it picture of written communi-
cation, if that was the sense in which
they wished the word to be understood.
The name given to this Egyptian writing
is "hieroglyphics," from two Greek
ings," because the characters were gen.
i,,tn hn
the fashion among the Egyptians to
erect at the doors of their temples two
tall columns, one on each side. These
Greek word, which means spit, or
sword, and later came to be applied
to pointed column. Thirty of these
obelisks have so far been discov-
cred; some near the gates they once
adorned, some buried in the sand
at considerable distances. Twenty-Five of
them have been removed from Egypt at
various times, one being now in Paris, one
in London, and one in the New York
Central Park. An outline of the latter
is seen in the second cut. Like all the rest,
it is a single piece, and is of red sand
stone, the shaft proper being sixty-seven
feet eleven inches high, and the height
of the whole pillar, base included, being
ninety-six feet 1t weighs 1856 tons.
Every obelisk is covered from the top to
the bottom of the shaft with figures of
beasts, birds, men, and other objects
They are often cut several inches deep
into the stone, and the surface is very
carefully polished The hieroglyphics
were long a puzzle to scientific men, but
when the army of the first French En-
peror Napoleon was in Egypt the clue
to these mysterious symbols was dis
covered
At the town of Rosetta, which is
situated on the west branch of the Nile,
six miles from the sea and forty miles
nearly east of Alexandria, an officer of
artillery, while experimenting the re-
pair of an earthwork, discovered black
stone, having on it inscriptions in hero
glyphics and Greek and then unknown
character. Impressions were at once
taken of it, and it was packed up for
transportation to Paris. But it never
reached it's destination. When the
British captured Alexandria it was speci
fed that all curiosities were to be given
up, and among the rest this stone fell
into their hands. 1t was safely conveyed
to London and finally reached its present
resting place in the British Museum.